


can you dream of a flower you have never seen?

by inallmybitterness



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: AM/CF spoilers, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Dreams and Nightmares, Established Relationship, M/M, azure moon felix dreams of crimson flower felix, felix is soft sometimes, felix-centric, no beta we die like the blue lions in CF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 00:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21365023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inallmybitterness/pseuds/inallmybitterness
Summary: Dimitri often had sleep troubles, that much was known to most of his close acquaintances. A lonesome figure swinging his blade at the training grounds, the dim light of a candle visible under his door, a scream in the dead of the night—signs of varying subtlety pointing to the perils that nighttime brought upon him. Those whose lives were lost at the Tragedy of Duscur maintained a tight grasp on him, and would continue to do so for as long as he lived.Perhaps it was expected of Felix to be equally haunted by the past. However, what plagued his sleep was an entirely different scenario—visions so vivid, he could almost swear he had actually lived through them.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 2
Kudos: 127





	can you dream of a flower you have never seen?

**Author's Note:**

> This idea was brought to you by a short convo I had with a mutual on Twitter about Felix's sleep habits. It started with me wondering about him having trouble sleeping, then she mentioned Dimitri's sleep issues, and my thoughts snowballed from there.
> 
> Warnings for depictions of (canon) character death, dissociation, mentions of blood, and Felix thinking about all of the traumatic and complicated shit in his life. Violence is described, although not in detail.

It was rare for Felix to have a quiet night by Dimitri’s side.

Although the king had grown to learn how to deal with his ghosts most of the time, the night made him vulnerable and sharing a bed meant Felix witnessed all of his lover’s woes firsthand. The last time they shared a bed had been many years prior—a lifetime ago—when Dimitri sometimes visited Fraldarius territory and a young Felix would sneak into the guest room at night, because his own room was big and dark and lonely and _scary, _but just being by Dima’s side somehow made him feel like nothing was too scary anymore.

(Not like he would ever admit that, of course. It was difficult not to cringe at his own past self, constantly clinging to others.)

Even then, Dimitri was a messy sleeper who would toss and turn and occasionally hit Felix with the delicate strength of a sleeping Blaiddyd. Felix would surely whine and find his shins decorated with dark spots, all because Dimitri dreamed he was fighting a monster when he broke his weapon and the only viable solution was to kick it in the face. In a strange way, however, he still treasured those moments, inconvenient as they were.

Now they were grown men, and while Dimitri would no longer hit him in his sleep, he would still toss and turn and sometimes press against him and mumble and weep. Screaming wasn’t as usual, but it did happen every now and then. Felix would wake up with a start, his hand semi-consciously reaching for anything he could use as a weapon as if they were still at war and camp had just been invaded by underhanded Empire forces.

As if the “enemy” wasn’t confined to Dimitri’s mind.

Over time, he found ways to soothe the restless king. Dimitri was softhearted—too much for his own good—and that may have been why physical comfort would often help him to some degree. Felix would reach for him, try to hold him and bring his head to rest on his chest. Or perhaps he would press his body against Dimitri’s back, clinging to that significantly larger man like a satchel thrown over his shoulders. Sometimes he would touch Dimitri’s face, unintentionally feathery touches wiping away tears before his hand snaked down his arm to intertwine their fingers, giving the other’s hand a squeeze as if to remind him there was a whole other world—_a real world_—waiting for him, and things had gotten just a little better despite how broken everything still was. It did not make Dimitri’s nightmares magically go away, but Felix was still relieved when he felt the king relax ever-so-slightly in his arms, allowing them both to get just a little more sleep.

He preferred not to say anything, but his usually prickly words would still stumble out of his lips—_stop_ and _be still _and _whatever you’re seeing isn’t real, you idiot_. His voice, however, wasn’t as harsh as it would’ve been if he were lashing out at a fully conscious Dimitri. His tone was low and soft, more akin to a prayer for the Goddess to do something about the man in his arms and the agony he still went through every night. To give him some respite when Felix was unable to.

(And he was usually unable to.)

Some nights were particularly difficult, either because Dimitri wouldn’t stay still long enough for Felix to offer any sort of comfort, or because the normally incomprehensible sleep talk would come out as discernible words for once, like verbal daggers cutting through Felix’s own wounds. Having your own life be so intimately interwoven with somebody else’s may have its perks, but whenever Felix woke up to Dimitri’s forlorn mumbling about Glenn or Rodrigue or any of the friends they lost during the war, it felt like a reminder of the curse that would forever undermine whatever blessing may be bestowed upon them.

Whenever that happened, Felix got up in annoyance and left the room without thinking about _where _the hell he was going first. He tried to tell himself he didn’t care if the noise woke Dimitri up or not, if he would suddenly jolt awake to find an empty spot next to him. In reality, he _knew _Dimitri would not wake up anytime soon (_it’s like he’s buried so deep in the graves in his mind, he can never just crawl out of them easily_), and part of him was glad he would have to deal neither with confrontation about issues that should’ve been long laid to rest, nor with his lover’s sentimentality.

He had his own share of nightmares about a strange, different past, after all.

It started when he was a student at the Academy. The dreams were vague and sparse—strange visions of fighting his classmates in the Blue Lions house, people he was not well acquainted with treating him as a comrade-in-arms. Dimitri reaching out to him, his eyes filled with abandonment and disbelief. Sylvain’s carefree façade cracking as he wistfully glimpsed at Felix from a distance. Ingrid’s disappointed eyes tugging at his heart harder than the judgmental glares he expected.

(_Expected? Why would you “expect” anything? They are just dreams, and ones that don’t even make any sense, at that._)

There were dreams he could not remember too well. All his memory retained was the ghostly sound of blades clashing, words about plans and war and the church and the Empire, flashes of red (a cape, a banner, a gush of blood), and most of all, the insurmountable self-doubt in his gut. For some reason, Felix would wake up from those dreams every single time feeling he had made a horrible decision, yet one he no longer had the power to change. A decision for which he was labeled a traitor, a label he decided to wear like a beacon of self-destruction as he looked at his own ruin in the face and decided to march on instead of backing out.

The dreams accompanied him for years, but he tried not to dwell on them. He was a warrior, there was nothing strange about dreaming of war. They were only dreams, and unlike _some people_, he could tell them apart from reality.

* * *

Days after his father’s death, he revisited it in his dreams—although _revisiting _may not be the correct word for it, as everything about it was different. They were not at Gronder, but rather, in a town with a few buildings and plenty of open space surrounded by the large, sturdy walls of a fortress. There was no soul to be seen on the streets except for soldiers he did not recognize and familiar faces he had come across a few times, both at the monastery and during the war. People whose armor indicated they fought for the Empire treated him as an ally, and people donning signature Kingdom colors charged towards him with the vicious hatred of the battlefield.

By some sort of dreamlike magic, he knew he was part of an army invading Arianrhod. He was not entirely sure what he was fighting for, but he dodged attacks and retaliated with the focus of a mercenary who sticks to whatever task is assigned by their employer. His mind was all action and little thought, and for someone who often saw himself as nothing but a human blade, it suited him just fine.

He ran towards a square, a central spot that would have served as the perfect venue for public meetings or market fairs in more peaceful times. There he found a familiar horse, atop which stood a familiar man he had seen just a few days before—however, unlike last time Felix saw him, his wavy dark hair was not matted with blood, life still pumped through the vessels beneath his pale white skin, and a soul still directed his icy blue eyes towards him.

“So, my foolish son,” Rodrigue said, and his voice was so fresh in Felix’s mind he felt like he was truly talking to his father, “you took it upon yourself to leave your family behind.”

_(Oh, **I** did? **I **was the one who gave my life away for the sake of chivalry, scarring my family in the process without caring for it, as long as I could still fulfill my duty?)_

“I’m not coming back,” Felix’s lips moved on their own, his voice sounding the same on the surface in spite of the fact something sounded fundamentally off. “I won’t serve the boar.”

(_Coming back from where? Where to?_)

The pain and disappointment in Rodrigue’s eyes immediately reminded Felix of the looks Ingrid once directed at him, in another dream he should have forgotten long ago. Emotions he, himself, often felt deep in his core when he thought of them—of Glenn—of everything about a life he had not chosen, yet embraced.

As much as he felt like others _would—__should—_feel the same towards him, actually experiencing it felt as if a sharp blade that had been resting against his chest for ages had finally, slowly started digging into his skin, a mixture of excruciating pain and oddly tender movement.

“It’s a father’s duty to settle his child’s failures," Rodrigue declared. His clear resolve was not enough to conceal the grief in his voice. "Felix… You must die here and now!”

Even before Glenn’s death, Rodrigue was not a great father, that was true. He was not particularly terrible, either, as far as noblemen in Faerghus go. While House Fraldarius had never been one for emotional openness, Felix was an outlier as a child, and despite finding him to be an odd kid, his family did offer him some support. That was especially true for Glenn, and perhaps Rodrigue found solace in the admiration his strange younger child seemed to nurture for his golden boy. Perhaps he thought Glenn would help Felix mature into the righteous, noble knight he was meant to be.

Then Glenn died, and all of Rodrigue’s not-particularly-terrible flaws stood out to Felix like a low tune that suddenly grows into an insufferably loud fanfare. Dealing with his father—the man who praised Glenn’s death, implying he would rather see his son dead and honorable than failed and alive—any more than necessary elicited such visceral disgust in him, his only choices were to either turn his back and leave, or snap. For all intents and purposes, Felix could only describe what he felt for his father as despise.

His death at Gronder (_died like a true knight_) awakened mixed feelings he had tried to ignore for a long time. Rejecting and snapping was easy when you told yourself anger was all you felt; any other course of action was annoyingly complicated when he allowed childish feelings to speak up. He could not name them—did not _want _to name them—but for a moment, when it finally hit him that Rodrigue was dead, he felt as if he were still a teary-eyed little boy, seeing him praise Glenn and wishing he, too, could be acknowledged. A little boy who, even then, was unheard and unseen, ignored as more pressing matters called for his family’s attention. The feeling was akin to a memory stored at the back of his mind, dormant yet alive, awakening for a brief moment to remind Felix something soft _(and hurt_) still lay beneath his scorn.

In his dream, as he heard Rodrigue’s words, similar feelings were unleashed in a vicious cascade. All times he heard Rodrigue say he’d rather see Glenn die as a knight than live as a runaway—a coward—a person with minimal value for his own life—ran through his ears as he was faced with the reality

_(reality?)_

that he, Felix, was also seen as a pawn rather than as a person. A life to be thrown away for nonsensical ideals.

(_Isn’t that how I see myself, though? As a sword whose only use is to cut whoever stands in my way? Isn’t my skill all that matters?)_

He could not recall the last time his thoughts had been so confusing.

_(Shouldn’t that be good enough a reason for me to retaliate? To fight for my life? Show that old man I’m stronger than his foolish ideals, and he could die a pitiful death for them while I’d go on living?)_

He charged on, blade in hand. His hesitation may have been barely noticeable, or it may have existed only in his mind. He didn't know.

_(Living for what I truly believe in.)_

One single swing of his blade was enough to cut a crimson river open across Rodrigue’s stomach, the knight falling from his horse.

_(**What** do I believe in?)_

_Betrayal _was the only word buzzing in Felix’s mind, loud and painful as if an insect had flown into his ear and desperately tried to get out.

It was stuck in his brain. It couldn’t find a way out.

_(I can’t find a way out.)_

_(I need to find a way out.)_

_(**Just let me cut my way out**.)_

That night, Felix jolted awake with unforeseen intensity. His heartbeat was deafening, his whole body felt tense and his skin was damp with sweat. His lungs felt strained, reduced to half their usual capacity, and not even the deepest breath Felix took felt sufficient.

The tears stinging his eyes were possibly the most jarring of all reactions his body imposed on him. Felix hadn’t cried in years, not even since Glenn’s death. He would not let himself stumble because of a stupid (_vision_) dream.

He was unable to go back to sleep.

* * *

He had a few other dreams throughout the war: dreams of facing Sylvain, and Ingrid, and all other people who fought by his side when awake. Conversations that could never happen—through his dreams, he grew acquainted with Dorothea and Bernadetta, women of the Empire whom he may have barely exchanged words with as students. Women he never truly knew, yet his mind somehow fabricated entire personalities and backgrounds for them. He once sarcastically commended his unconscious for its creativity. Perhaps he could have been a playwright in another life.

Even as the war ended and all of those people were dead, the dreams continued.

Even as he and Dimitri grew closer than ever before, and their sparring sessions started including glances and touches and kisses, and the two eventually made a habit out of sharing a bed after late-night councils, the dreams continued. Manageable and oftentimes forgettable—definitely not as bad as the king's nightmares—but they continued nevertheless.

His last nightmare happened years after the end of the war.

The scene was familiar: a rainy evening at the Tailtean Plains, the Empire army on his side facing off against the Kingdom. It was the same location where his dream self had previously felled Sylvain and watched as Dedue and Mercedes met their end; a place he dreaded, but knew he would return to some day. There was still one person his nightmares had not pitched him against, after all. The dreams started losing their linearity as the war neared its end: before, Felix could almost pierce every event he remembered together like a story, but at some point, scenes were far too scattered for him to put in the effort required to connect them. At times, he would find himself back at the Academy; at others, he would be all by himself, aimlessly perusing Fódlan, feeling older and emptier. Between those events, he would occasionally witness a battle or another against human and non-human opponents alike. Yet, he never knew when his unconscious would land that final blow, and thinking of it made him almost dread going to sleep. He had the gut feeling it would come when things had grown a little stable, a little peaceful, a little... hopeful.

(Ruining such a moment was just like him.)

Felix looked to the side, the late Emperor Edelgard standing next to him. He had seen her in dreams before, either on the battlefield or delivering a speech to her strike force, but this was the first time she seemed to acknowledge _him _directly as their eyes met. There weren’t many others around—neither on their side, nor on the enemy’s—and the strain on Felix’s body signaled they were at the end of a long, exhausting battle.

He took a step forward, and Edelgard—whose voice he could barely recall—spoke, low yet clear.

“Are you certain you are able to do this?” she asked.

Felix didn’t reply. He only moved, sword unsheathed, towards a tall figure clad in dark armor, a long blue cape draped over his shoulders and the legendary lance, Areadbhar, in hand.

He was now close enough to attack, and his heart stopped.

Many people looked different in his dreams. It was only natural, considering they were mere fabrications of his mind, and he admittedly did not pay close attention to what most people around him looked like. Although the difference was usually small—details he could barely put his finger on—it was there nonetheless.

That was not the case with Dimitri, who looked strikingly different from the man Felix encountered years ago, when all of his classmates reunited at the monastery.

The first difference to stand out was Dimitri’s right eye. Felix had seen Dimitri without his eyepatch by now, and was quite familiar with the deep scar marking his empty socket. He was also familiar with how he felt about that scar—about everything it represented, all burdens he carried and his compromise with becoming a king who learned from hardship and was ready to lead his country into a bright, peaceful future. It had grown to be an integral part of the man to whom Felix swore his blade and his heart.

The Dimitri before him displayed no eyepatch, no scar, nothing but a perfectly intact eye. The effect such a difference had on Felix was so intense, he almost wondered if that truly was Dimitri. Certainly, he could wield the Hero’s Relic and wear the same armor, but everything else seemed so _off._

The voice that spoke to him was as clear as all others, carrying the same firm confidence that recently marked the king’s speech, having cast aside the graves he had strung around his neck for so long.

“You killed Rodrigue… Your own father, Felix.”

Felix winced. There it was again.

Pain. Disappointment.

_(Betrayal.)_

Tearing at him like a poisoned dagger.

“I said I’d cut down anyone who stood in my way,” he spoke words he did not think of through lips he did not command to move, as par for the course. “Even my father. Even my friends.”

_(**What is my way?**)_

As much as Felix wished he could carve a different path for himself, he never thought there was truly another option. He was born to be by Dimitri’s side—much like his father with King Lambert, and every single Fraldarius who served a Blaiddyd before them—and there, his heart chose to stay. It may seem like a fate imposed on him, but the last say was his own, and the reasoning behind it were his own ideals rather than some mythical hogwash about destiny and roles.

Yet he now found himself rejecting all of that in spite of his own inner protests, siding with a country he never knew. He was once again assailed by the feeling of turning his back on the place where he belonged; the overbearing guilt and desperate need to turn back time, knowing full well he couldn’t. The consequences of turning his back on himself and everything he held dear.

“I see,” Dimitri’s eyebrows furrowed atop his _pair _of blue eyes. “That was all I needed to hear to finally work up the resolve to kill you.”

The grip on his sword tightened.

_(No.)_

It was normal for him to raise a weapon against Dimitri. The two had been training together from an early age, after all. As much of a weapon-breaking brute as he was, he was still a worthy opponent, and sparring with him unleashed adrenaline rushes Felix could not experience with anybody else.

The scenario he now took part in was no training, and the thrill he felt was not the same as when he and Dimitri met at the training grounds. His heart rushed with the urgency of someone who stands by a precipice, knowing there will be no turning back once they take a fatal leap, no one to give them a second chance or save them from their demise.

Yet, they choose to take it.

_(NO.)_

He swung his blade at Dimitri, landing a powerful hit on his torso, pieces of armor cracking and scattering on the muddy ground in which they stood. A stronger swing than any Felix had ever dealt in real battle, and it was still not enough to bring the King of Faerghus down.

_(This is not what I wanted.)_

Dimitri took a mere second to recollect himself, swinging his lance towards Felix without hesitation, the blade glowing as it resonated with his Crest. Felix dodged as easily as he would have avoided a child who tried to hit him with a stick.

His gaze could not leave Dimitri’s face, contorted in more than just physical pain, he was sure. His own eyes burned and his throat felt tight, making it hard to breathe without affecting his performance, somehow.

_(This has **never **been what I wanted.)_

He wanted to scream. He knew he could not scream at himself to stop—even if he did, what would become of him afterwards? Would he simply watch as Dimitri was killed by somebody else? Would he interfere somehow, throwing away everything he had done so far in a vain attempt at protecting something he had already broken?

(_Why did I make this choice?_)

He attacked Dimitri again, his blade dexterously aiming for the unprotected patch of skin where his armor had broken off.

From that moment on, he felt he could no longer process what happened. The sound—or could it be a feeling? A physical sensation?—of his sword perforating something soft,

(_flesh_)

hitting something hard,

(_bones_)

taking a life.

(_Dimitri’s_)

A grunt of pain muffled by the wind and the rain, something Felix was certain he had heard, yet doubtful at the same time. Like a daydream. Or déjà vu.

_(Not only a dream?)_

A thud as a man (_Dimitri_) fell to the cold, wet ground, mumbling something he could not process. An extremely vague sense of himself, where he stood and what he did.

(_Where am I again?)_

The stench of blood. How could he smell it so vividly? Shouldn’t the raindrops wash it all away? Shouldn’t the scent of the wet mud and greenery of the plains be stronger on his nose?

(_What did I do?)_

His vision had faded into a blur, and the ringing in his ears was so loud—_so damn loud—_he wondered if the entire world had somehow melded into the chaotic mess detected by his senses, chimerical shapes and colors dancing to the tune of that tortuous sound, bathed in a river of blood.

His knees gave way beneath him. The veil blurring his vision was making him dizzy.

(_I feel... lost._)

Felix did not like feeling lost. He liked his determination, his resolve. Making his own choices and sticking to them. He was an independent man, not a child without purpose.

At that moment, however, he felt much closer to the latter. As if the map he had drawn from his choices had lead him to a dead end, leaving him with no direction.

(_Where should I go?_)

A slight pressure applied to his hand, partially covered in a disgusting mixture of mud and blood. A touch so weak it felt distant.

The illusion of a familiar voice calling out to him beneath the maddening ringing in his ears.

(_...Dimitri?_)

Of course it was Dimitri. Dimitri would never leave his side. That idealistic, soft-hearted fool who insisted on clinging onto childish memories and dreams in spite of the barriers Felix tried so hard to build between them. The stupid prince who struggled to find an opening in Felix's emotional fortress _(but has it ever been as solid as I liked to think?_), who poured his heart and soul into carefully reshaping those walls until the opening grew wider and wider. And still, he would not intrude. He would wait (_gentlemanly as ever_) in hopes that some day Felix would let him in.

(_Dimitri is still here._)

He raised his head towards the hand resting on top of his, and his vision focused at last. In a mere second, the wavering spectra converted into sharp shapes: a blue cape adorned with black and white fur spread across the dirty ground. Fingers concealed in black gauntlets, trembling as if struggling to _exist_ at all, to prove they are real.

(_Real? Is this real?_)

A head full of messy blond hair covering most of the man's face, save for his _pair _of blue eyes. A _pair _of eyes that fought to remain open, the eyelids fluttering as they fought the crushing weight of death.

And blood. Obviously, the entire scene was bathed in blood: a crimson pool beneath the man, red swirls mixing with the mud and the water, scarlet undertones tainting his fair skin and hair. A disgusting color to match the disgusting smell—which, unlike the wavering haze distorting his vision, seemed to grow stronger by the second.

"Felix..." Dimitri mumbled, his arm and torso shuddering as if his whole body needed to make an effort to blurt out that one word.

Felix wanted to call out to him. He wanted to scream his name and hold him and nothing more, for there were so many thoughts flying haphazardly in his mind that it ironically felt as if he could think of nothing at all. 

When he opened his mouth, however, he could not hear his own voice.

His heart picked up its pace.

(_Can't I even call out to him? Am I **that **powerless?_)

"Felix," Dimitri repeated, adopting that name as a mantra that would ease him into the world of the dead. Specks of blood blew from between his lips at each syllable. "Felix. Felix."

(_I am here, Dimitri. I am here. I am here but I can't respond to you. I am by your side.)_

_(I should have never left your side.)_

His chest heaved painfully with each breath, his lungs failing him once again. The same way they had failed him when he killed Rodrigue, and Sylvain, and Ingrid. The same way they had failed him when he witnessed Dedue's death, unable to protect the man to whom he had sworn his loyalty. The same way they had failed him when we watched as Mercedes and Ashe and Annette—people who may not have been by his side for as long as Ingrid, Sylvain and Dimitri, but who had once been close allies who showed interest and sympathy for him for _some inconceivable reason_)—all lost their lives on the battlefield, not by his own blade, but by those who fought by his side. By those he supported.

Rather than simply being unable to take in the air he needed, this time it felt like his lungs were flammable, and each breath fed the flames building up inside him. The fire grew strong and savage, devouring him from the inside, the smoke suffocating his heart and burning his system all the way up to his eyes.

"Felix," Dimitri's voice grew weak. A strangely sane part of Felix wanted to stomp his foot on the ground and tell the other to _just spit it out already instead of repeating my damn name, I can hear you!_ But he did not say a thing, of course. He was not capable of doing so. Not when Dimitri was convalescing next to him, his eyes and hand giving in as whatever strength they had left was emptied into the plains, flowing in vivid crimson like a morbid river of roses.

And as Felix thought Dimitri would finally close his eyes and go completely still, his voice came louder than ever.

_"Felix, **wake** **up.**_"

He felt it.

Hot breath against his face, unlike the cold wind and the brisk rain.

A soft sensation all around him—embracing him—warm and comfortable, unlike the unwelcoming battlefield.

A tight squeeze of his hand, skin against skin, unlike the dying armored hand he had felt before.

Felix opened his eyes, and found himself back at his quarters, enveloped in deep darkness and even deeper warmth, provided less by heavy covers made to fend off the ruthless Faerghus winter and more by the man who held him in his arms.

A man whose monstrous strength remained untouched by the tendrils of death, whose grasp on his hand was firm and reassuring, whose left eye was wide open while a deep scar was carved onto the right one.

Felix exhaled sharply, and while he realized his nose was embarrassingly runny and his whole face was wet with tears, his brain did not fully process the information. He was too busy basking in the _living _Dimitri on his bed, the king of a united realm they had fought for _together_. His lifelong ally, and friend, and partner.

"Dimitri?" he finally mustered, his voice hoarse and cracking in a way that could have vexed him tremendously if more important matters didn't demand his attention.

"Felix, you're awake!" Dimitri's voice quivered with emotion, and fortunately without blood. "You must have had such a dreadful nightmare! I had never seen you so agitated in your sleep. I had never heard you... scream like that." His right hand tenderly touched Felix's face, wiping away tears that continued to flow. "Are you alright?"

Felix's only response was a childlike sob followed by a childlike embrace, pulling Dimitri close with the desperate need of a man finding safe haven amidst a raging storm. His annoyance at his own vulnerability could wait, and so could Dimitri's questions. For now, all that Felix needed was to smell his lover's scent, feel his warm skin against his own and his heart pumping life through his body as Felix nuzzled his neck, his nose meeting Dimitri's pulsating carotid.

Dimitri simply wrapped his arms around his lover, pulling him closer just like Felix himself would often do when Dimitri struggled with his own nightmares.

And while neither man spoke again for the rest of the night—Felix's body slowly calming down as he savored the feeling of being in Dimitri's arms, glad for making the string of choices that lead up to that moment when so many things had gone wrong and could have gone worse still; Dimitri stroking Felix's hair, giving him comfort and space alike as part of him basked in such an atypical moment of affection coming from his otherwise peevish partner—Felix answered Dimitri's question in his mind, too exhausted and comfortable to actually say the words out loud.

_I am alright now, because I know you're here._

**Author's Note:**

> Felix can be soft, but it's unintentional and only when nobody's looking. Including the person he's soft for. :^)
> 
> As much as I love Fraldarddyd/Dimilix, I tend to struggle A LOT writing their dynamics. If you think Felix turned out OOC at some point, please feel free to point it out!!


End file.
